A CEO’s Tips for Handling Rejection

Welcome to Ask the CEO, in which chief executives take time out from running companies to solve your career problems.

Mariam Naficy, 44 years old, is the CEO of Minted LLC, an online marketplace that specializes in paper products, art and home goods. Ms. Naficy has written a book, co-founded an online beauty company that was sold for a reported $110 million and ran e-commerce for the Body Shop. But in 1995, she was rejected from Stanford Graduate School of Business, she shared in a recent interview. (She was accepted the next year.) Edited excerpts follow.